We were up early for
a longer run,and as Steve opened the hatch he found that the swarm of flying
bugs had spent the night on the boat! He hastily closed it again and then
went back out armed with a can of insect spray and a fly-swatter! As soon
as he appeared they began buzzing around him, and he found himself breathing
them in and had to hold his breath!. Fortunately, they did not seem to be
biters, so holding his breath,he sprayed at them and eventually cleared the
cockpit enough for us to venture out.

The sight that met
us was one that neither of us had seen before - the whole boat was covered in
green spots! We had been shat upon by thousands of the little buggers! So
instead of setting off, we set about cleaning up the boat.

The wholeboat
was covered in green
poo!
One of the many piles of dead bugs.

Fortunately, the
green spots washed off the cockpit easily with soapy water,but there was nothing
to be done about the canvas for the time being. Getting it off the outside
GRP proved to be somewhat more difficult, so that was also left for
later.

We eventually set
off, continuing the cleaning up as we went along. Kenny and Sarah were faring
somewhat less well than us as they didn't have any bug spray to kill the bugs
off, and they spent all day hoovering them up or shooing them from one place to
another. Sarah decided to bake some brownies to cheer us all up and as
they passed by to deliver some to us we were amused to see Kenny at the helm of
Loon all kitted out in beekeeper's hat and vacuum
cleaner!